Let's Brew Wednesday - 1939 Whitbread SSS

Now here’s a beer that I’m not sure that I understand. Or rather, I don’t understand why it was brewed in 1939.

One of the handy features of Whitbread’s brewing records is a table in the back showing how much of each beer was brewed each week. Useful for knowing which were the most popular beers. But also to make sure I never miss any beers that were only brewed very occasionally when I’m snapping logs.

I know that SSS was brewed from at least 1837. Though there was an interruption between 1853 and 1867. It wasn’t brewed in enormous quantities, usually between 10,000 and 15,000 barrels a year. That was until March 1917, when it was dropped. Presumably as a result of changes in the rules in April 1917. It was briefly replaced by a strong Stout called Imperial, until this in turn was discontinued in April 1918.

Usually that would have been the end of it. In the interwar period, Whitbread didn’t brew a Stout stronger than Extra Stout, which was a mere 1055.5º. Then in April 1939, only a few months before the outbreak of war, SSS returned. Why, I have no idea. Not that much of it was brewed. The largest batch was 80 barrels. In the whole of 1939 a mere 928 barrels were brewed. The final brew was in March 1940.

Clearly, they couldn’t have brewed such small quantities single-gyle. This particular example was parti-gyled with Mackeson. Something Whitbread could do as they only added the lactose at racking time as a sort of priming.

I’d love to know where SSS was sold and under what name. I suspect it might have been an export beer. Though it could also have been conceived as a rival to Barclay Perkins Russian Stout, as beer with a similar gravity.

The grist is the same as Whitbread’s other Stouts, with the backbone formed by pale, brown and chocolate malt. I’m not quite sure why the oats were included as none of this brew ended up as Oatmeal Stout. I suppose they just used the same recipe, no matter what.

The hops were an unusual mixture of English and German: Kent from the 1938 harvest, Whitbread Mid-Kent from 1937 (kept in a cold store) and Hallertau from 1935.

1939 Whitbread SSS
pale malt	18.00 lb	72.38%
brown malt	2.00 lb	8.04%
chocolate malt	2.00 lb	8.04%
flaked oats	0.20 lb	0.80%
No. 3 invert sugar	2.00 lb	8.04%
caramel 1000 SRM	0.67 lb	2.69%
Hallertau 75 mins	1.00 oz
Fuggles 75 mins	2.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins	3.00 oz
OG	1110.5
FG	1043
ABV	8.93
Apparent attenuation	61.09%
IBU	47
SRM	69
Mash at	149º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	75 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

Tied estates in 1977

I was slightly frustrated by the lack of detail about pubs owned by non-Big Six breweries in my recent posts. Then I remembered that the Good Beer Guide usually mentioned how many tied houses a brewery had.

Time to trawl through my 1978 Good Beer Guide to extract the numbers. Which is reasonably doable as there were far fewer breweries back then.

The results are quite interesting. Though for the Big Six, the numbers are way wrong because not all of the brewery entries contained numbers of tied pubs. The real total was over 35,000.

However, for independent breweries, the numbers are fairly complete. I wouldn't claim that they were 100% accurate, as breweries were constantly buying, selling or closing pubs. But they give a resonable overview of the size and number of tied estates.

The number of quite large estates - those of 500 pubs or more - is surprisingly large at seven. While a further 18 were between 200 and 500 pubs and another 18 between 100 and 200 pubs. 43 estates were over 100 pubs and 42 below 100. Not sure what that tells us, but it's good to know.

If you compare this table with the one from 2017 I published a few days ago, you'll see that some brewery estates have grown, while others have shrunk. Fullers have trebled the size of their estate, while Greene King's has expanded almost fourfold. Bateman's however, has been more than halved. I would guess that this is the result of rural closures rather than sales.

The biggest loser, however, is Camerons down from 600 pubs to just 58. Donnington appears totally unchanged, having 17 pubs in both lists. I wonder if they are the same 17 pubs?

Tied estates in 1977
Brewery	independent	Big Six
Adnams	72
All Nations	1
Alnwick	20
Ansells		2,400
Arkell	64
Banks's	770
Bass Charrington (Tadcaster)		1,000
Bass Worthington
Bateman	110
Batham	8
Belhaven	25
Blackawton	0
Blue Anchor	1
Boddingtons	270
Border	200
Brain	100
Brakspear	130
Matthew Brown	600
Buckley	180
Burt	11
Burtonwood	300
Cameron	700
Carlsberg	0
Castletown	36
Charrington
Courage
Crown	350
Darley	88
Davenports	110
Devenish (Redruth)	200
Devenish (Weymouth)	190
Donnington	17
Drybrough
Eldridge Pope	180
Eldgood	58
Everards	134
Felinfoel	80
Fuller	110
Gale	102
Gibbs Mew	56
Godson	0
Gray	51
Greenall Whitley	1,450
Greene King	850
Greenwoods	0
Guernsey	50
Guinness	2
Hall & Woodhouse	162
Hardy & Hansons	200
Hartleys	58
Harvey	24
Higsons	158
Holden	11
Holt	80
Home	400
Hook Norton	34
Hoskins	1
Hull	210
Hydes	50
Jennings	90
King & Barnes	59
Lees	150
Litchborough	0
Lorimer	205
McEwan
Maclay	25
McMullen	170
Mansfield	200
Marston's	600
Melbourne	32
Mitchells	47
M & B		2,000
Morland	220
Newcastle		712
New Fermor Arms	1
Northern Clubs	0
Okell	70
Oldham	100
Old Swan	2
Paine	24
Palmer	70
Pollard	0
Randall (St. Hellier)	28
Randall (Guernsey)	18
Rayment	25
Robinson	318
Ruddle	36
St. Austell	132
Selby	1
Shepherd Neame	234
Shipstone	250
Simpkiss	16
Smiles	0
John Smith		1,600
Sam Smith	200
Timothy Taylor	28
Tennent (Edinburgh)
Tennent (Glasgow)
Tetley		1,100
Tetley Walker		1,100
Theakson	6
John Thompson	1
Three Tuns	1
Thwaites	380
Tolly Cobbold	360
Traquair House	0
Truman		900
Usher		688
Vaux	510
Wasworth	143
Ward	96
Watney		1,600
Webster		288
Charles Wells	265
Welsh Brewers		605
Westcrown	0
Wilsons		720
Yates & Jackson	43
York	0
Young	135
Total	14,355	14,713
Source:
Good Beer Guide 1978

No. tied houses	No. estates
> 500	7
200 - 500	18
100 - 200	18
50 - 100	16
20 - 50	15
< 20	15

Brewery ownership of pubs 1974 - 2017

Some more lovely tables today. One taken from the BBPA Statistical Handbook 2018 which arrived recently the other is somewhat older.

Let's kick off with older of the two tables, wjhich shows the state of play back in the mid-1970s, when the Big Six was a boout at its peak.

Between them the Big Six owned getting on for 40,000 on licences. Now I'm not sure if that's only pubs. I suspect not. I have a feeling, given the size of the total, that there are other non-pub on licences included.

The Big Six weren't all roughly equal. Bass Charrington was significantly bigger than anyone else. They owned more pubs and their share of beer sales was larger. They had almost double the mnarket share of the two smallest, Watney and Scottish & Newcastle. The latter owned fewer pubs than the others because much of the trade in Scotland was nominally free. Though, in practice, most pubs North of the border were tied through loans.

Significantly, the Big Six between them owned almost three times as many pubs as all the other breweries combined. It should really be the Big Seven, but CAMRA generally left them out as they didn't have a tied estate. They had a diifferent model to all the other breweries, providing bottled Guinness for other breweries' pubs.

Pub ownership 1974 - 1976
Bewery	Uk Breweries	% beer sales	On Licences (1974)	% On Licences
Bass Charrington	12	20	9,256	8.15%
Allied Breweries	7	17	7,665	6.75%
Whitbread	19	13	7,865	6.92%
Watney/Grand Met	8	12	5,946	5.23%
Scottish & Newcastle	3	11	1,678	1.48%
Courage	8	9	5,921	5.21%
Guinness	1	9	0	0
Total Big Seven	58	91	38,331	33.7%
Others	89	9	13,800	12.1%
Tied Trade			52,131	45.9%
Free Trade			61,498	54.1%
Total	147	100	113,629
Source:
“The Brewing Industry, a Guide to Historical Records” by Lesley Richmond & Alison Turton.
Notes:
No. breweries and % beer sales 1976
No. on licences 1974

The situation today looks very different, with most of the large brewing groups owning no pubs. The exception being Heineken. Though two-thirds of the tied houses belong to just three breweries: Mastons, Greene King and Heineken. The latter two have estates approaching those of the BIG Six in size.

Brewery-owned pubs in 2017
Brewery	No. pubs
Adnams & Co PLC	49
Anheuser Busch Inbev UK	0
Arkell's Brewery Ltd	96
Asahi UK	4
George Bateman & Son Ltd	48
Daniel Batham & Son Ltd	11
S. A. Brain & Co Ltd	203
Brewdog	34
C & C Group PLC	0
Camerons Brewery Ltd.	58
Carlsberg UK Ltd.	0
Donnington Brewery	17
Elgood & Sons Ltd	28
Everards Brewery Ltd	172
Felinfoel Brewery Co Ltd.	73
Fuller. Smith & Turner PLC	373
Greene King PLC	3,048
Hall & Woodhouse Ltd	188
Harvey & Sons (Lewes) Ltd.	48
Heineken UK	2,836
Holden's Brewery	21
Joseph Holt Ltd.	128
Hook Noiton Brewery Co. Ltd.	36
Hydes Brewery Ltd.	53
J W Lees & Co. (Brewers) Ltd	141
Liberation Group (Butcombe)	69
Marston's PLC	1,421
McMullen & Sons Ltd.	125
Molson Coors (UK) Brewers	0
J.C. & R.H. Palmer Ltd	54
Frederlc Robinson Ltd	261
St Austell Brewery Co. Ltd	176
Shepherd Neame Ltd.	314
Samuel Smith Old Brewery	300
Timothy Taylor & Co.Ltd.	20
T & R Theakston Ltd	0
Daniel Thwaites PLC	248
Wadworth & Co Ltd.	224
Charless Wells	186
Total	11,063
Source:
BBPS Statistical Handbook 2018, pages 70 - 71.

Bass Charrington once owned almost as many pubs as the total number of brewery-owned pubs today.

Boddington hops in 1939

Finishing off our look at Boddington's recipes in 1939, today we're looking at the hops they used.

hen it came to hops, Boddington were slightly odd. Every beer had a large number of different hops, some in tiny quantities. Why they used 6 types of copper hops in a beer, I’m not sure. Usually having multiple types of the same ingredient was a way of smoothing out any change when one ingredient needed to be replaced. But most breweries were content with at most three or four types of hops.

Most of the hops were English, though there were small quantities of Oregon and Styrian hops. The quantity used of the latter was so small – 5 lbs out of a total of 150-220 lbs – you have to wonder what the point was. Coming from Yugoslavia, the war inevitably interrupted the supply of Styrian hops.

The hops are as old as they might at first appear. These beers were all brewed in January 1939, meaning that the 1937 harvest hops were only a bit over a year old. As they had all been kept in a cold store – that’s what CS means – they wouldn’t have deteriorated that much.

Analyses of hops from before the war show that Fuggles which contained 6.28% alpha acid when fresh were only down to 5.84% alpha after 14 months.  That’s a mere 7% deterioration. Hardly really worth taking into consideration, given that the alpha acid content could vary far more than that from one season to the next.

Unfortunately, for English hops Boddington only recorded the name of the grower, not the variety nor the region where they were grown. Though the chances are that most were either something Goldings-like or Fuggles, as they were the majority of hops grown in England.

Boddington hops in 1939
Beer	Style	OG	Oregon (1937 CS)	Styrian (1937 CS)	English (1937 CS)	English (1937 CS)	English (1937 CS)	English (1938)	total
IP	Pale Ale	1045	30	5	30	50	35	30	180
XX	Mild	1033.8	30	5	45	45		25	150
CC	Strong Ale	1056	35	5	70	30	40	40	220
St	Stout	1045	35		40	25	25	25	150
Source:
Boddington brewing record held at Manchester Central Library, document number M693/405/129.

Let's Brew - 1939 Fullers BO

When I published details of 1939 London Burton Ales a few days ago, someone asked if I was going to publish a recipe. Well, here's one.

The rather unfortunate name of “BO” stands for Burton Old. Not sure why it wasn't OB (Old Burton), which would make more sense. Especially as the stronger version was called OBE - Old Burton Extra.

An indication of BO’s popularity is the size of batches that it was brewed in – usually 100-150 barrels. Which isn’t much different to that of XK, Fullers Ordinary Bitter. Though XK was brewed more frequently than BO. A fairly mainstream beer, then.

Being parti-gyled with X Ale, the recipe is obviously the same. Just pale malt, flaked maize, glucose and a type of sugar called “Intense”. The hops were, again, all English from the 1938 season. Two different types, which is why I’ve plumped for two hop additions.

Note the total absence of coloured malt, despite this being a dark beer. Surprisingly little coloured malt was used before WW II. The one exception bveing Porter and Stout. Even in Mild Ales, crystal malt was far from universal.

1939 Fullers BO
pale malt	10.25 lb	82.30%
flaked maize	1.75 lb	14.05%
glucose	0.33 lb	2.65%
caramel 1000 SRM	0.125 lb	1.00%
Fuggles 90 mins	1.75 oz
Fuggles 30 mins	1.75 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1055.5
FG	1014
ABV	5.49
Apparent attenuation	74.77%
IBU	42
SRM	13
Mash at	149º F
After underlet	152º F
Sparge at	168º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	WLP002 English Ale

Boddington grists in 1939

They might only have brewed a handful of different beers, but Boddington used a surprisingly large number of ingredients in their grists. There were no fewer than six types of malt: pale, high dried, black, crystal, enzymic and wheat. Though I’m not totally sure that the last one was malted. The brewing record merely says “wheat”.

Enzymic malt (also called Dixon’s malt, after its inventor who was head brewer at JW Green in Luton) was meant to help with conversion in the mash tun. Whether or not it really had much influence on mash efficiency isn’t clear, but it was very popular, especially after WW II. I’m not sure why Boddington only employed in their Bitter and Mild.

I assume that the wheat was used for head retention purposes. That would explain why there’s more in the Stout. Drinkers expected Stout to have a thick, creamy head.

The grist of CC is quite odd, containing a high percentage of crystal malt and flaked maize, but less than 60% base malt.

Boddington employed almost as many different sugars as grains. Mostly proprietary sugars. Each of the four beers had its own particular blend of sugars. IP and CC both have three different sugars that combined only make up 6% or so of the grist.

I’m guessing that the invert was No. 3 invert, as that’s what was normally used in Mild. But there’s no guarantee. DMS stands for Diastatic Malt Syrup, presumably used as another add to mash conversion. It’s something else that regularly pops up after WW II, but wasn’t so common before it.

Br, FL and B are all rather enigmatic. I’d be lying if I told you I had any idea what they are. Other than types of sugar, obviously.

Boddington Bitter was renowned for being very pale in my drinking youth in the 1970s. Looking at the grist for the 1939 version, which contains neither crystal malt nor caramel, Boddington were also back then trying to keep the colour as pale as possible.

Boddington grists in 1939 - grains
Beer	Style	OG	pale malt	high dried malt	black malt	crystal malt	enzymic malt	wheat malt	flaked maize
IP	Pale Ale	1045	71.52%				2.98%	2.98%	15.89%
XX	Mild	1033.8	61.48%			8.38%	2.79%	4.19%	11.18%
CC	Strong Ale	1056	56.89%			11.38%		2.84%	22.76%
St	Stout	1045	26.94%	40.40%	7.52%			10.77%
Source:
Boddington brewing record held at Manchester Central Library, document number M693/405/129.

Boddington grists in 1939 - sugars
Beer	Style	OG	Invert	DMS	Br	FL	B	caramel	total
IP	Pale Ale	1045		2.65%	2.65%	1.32%			6.62%
XX	Mild	1033.8	7.45%	1.86%		1.86%		0.80%	11.98%
CC	Strong Ale	1056				1.26%	3.79%	1.07%	6.13%
St	Stout	1045					8.98%	5.39%	14.37%
Source:
Boddington brewing record held at Manchester Central Library, document number M693/405/129.